Quotes of the day

posted at 8:31 pm on August 3, 2013 by Allahpundit

There was confusion Wednesday after the Arizona Republican mistakenly strolled into President Obama’s meeting with Senate Democrats at the Capitol.

The room full of Democrats — who happened to be meeting in the same room where the Senate GOP usually holds their weekly policy luncheons — erupted in applause and laughter as the former Republican presidential candidate made his entrance.

McCain also praised President Barack Obama’s speech about Trayvon Martin and the racial profiling that black men regularly face. While many have called Obama’s speech “divisive” for emphasizing issues of race, McCain thought the remarks were appropriate.

“Events like this highlight and emphasize that we have a long way to go,” McCain said. “The president very appropriately highlighted a lot of that yesterday, as only the president can.”

It has been a long wait. The maverick of 2000 and the thorn in George W. Bush’s side during the years that followed became a very different figure as he captured the 2008 Republican nomination, gave us Sarah Palin, fought against health-care reform and staved off a tea party challenger in 2010. He walked away from earlier positions on tax cuts, campaign finance reform, immigration, climate change, gays in the military and other issues. When he continued that course even after the 2010 election, I figured he had been lost to the right wing…

Many on the left won’t forgive McCain his trespasses in 2008 and 2010, and many on the right won’t forgive what he did before and since. But McCain has arguably turned himself into the most important legislator in a generation, at the center of the debate on war, terrorism, spending, corruption, health care and just about everything else…

The important thing is not where McCain has been but that he’s back. He’s needed more than ever.

“We have been looking literally for years for someone we can cut deals with, and finally someone has stepped up,” a White House official said. West Wing aides say they now talk with McCain roughly every other day…

White House officials said the process seemed to loosen up McCain. He no longer seems petulant or stubborn in their private conversations. This was on full display in a 90-minute conversation McCain and others had with Obama last week in the Oval Office.

“He has been a little bit grumpy — that’s gone,” said the senior White House aide. “He was joking with people in the room. He would say, ‘Let me frame it this way.’ In the past, generally what you got, not just with him but with most members, was, ‘I disagree with you.’”

***

A recent article in the conservative National Review described McCain as “Obama’s secret weapon” and a “lethal threat” to a Republican victory in the budget battles this fall…

So popular has the Arizona Republican become among Democrats that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – who in 2008 said, “I can’t stand John McCain” – now describes him as a “great senator,” right up there with the late Ted Kennedy, the Democratic “lion of the Senate” who became a bridge between parties after his own presidential ambitions were crushed.

In return, McCain has secured increased access to the White House and an opportunity to redeem his reputation as a Capitol Hill “maverick.” That image was tainted when McCain tacked to the right during his failed 2008 presidential run against Obama…

The administration also will try to work with McCain ahead of impending budget battles, McDonough said, given that the senator and the White House agree there is a negative impact from across-the-board federal budget cuts, particularly on the military and defense industry…

“He is the president of the United States,” McCain said. “You can strongly disagree and still be respectful.”

***

GWEN IFILL: So you think that [Obama] has changed, not you?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Well, I think, obviously look, when I was railing against President Bush and voting against his tax cuts and saying that Rumsfeld ought to be fired and a number of other things, I was the brave maverick taking on his own party. So now, when we have a Democrat in the White House, who I lost to and take him on on Obamacare and other issues now he’s the angry, bitter old man. It’s neither is true. I’m just a person here carrying on a legacy that was handed down to me by a number of greater leaders than me, including Bob Dole, that looking for solutions to problems.

“The people who are pushing this Obamacare vs. government shutdown, none of them that I know were here the last time we saw that movie,” he says…

Asked about their 2016 presidential aspirations, McCain isn’t very charitable, calling them only “viable.”

On the topic of his partnership with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a key Democratic leader, McCain laughed off the criticism voiced by some Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“Sen. Schumer is a person who is as good as his word,” McCain says. “His word is good, and he reminds me, in a way, of the work that I used to do with Ted Kennedy.”

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Blowback

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I think President McCain might very likely have been worse than Obama, and that’s no hyperbole. I think if McCain were president our troops would be spread so thin all over the world, for all the wrong, most misguided reasons, and illegal immigration would be even more rampant after McCain addressed his priorities and imposed his Amnesty in much the same way that Obama did Obamacare, (which is what McCain and the Gang of Eight are actually doing now with amnesty), and while we’d be overrun with foreign invaders McCain would probably have transformed America into a fascist police-state even faster than Obama, and we’d not only smuggling arms to Al Qaeda in Syria but probably even sacrificing American blood and treasure on their behalf, in Syria and probably many other places.

As dangerous as Obama is to our freedom and liberty, I think McCain would be even worse.

It’s too bad McCain was on the ticket in ’08 because otherwise I would have voted for Palin. Let’s hope Republicans, (or a third party), nominates Palin/Paul or Cruz/Lee in ’16.

As for Collette, it’s a semi-sad story. She was only interested in a one night stand. With me, it was love at first vulgarity. But it turned out she was engaged to a local gendarme. So settling for a one-nighter seemed like a good idea. It was a pretty good night.

My greatest fear is low information voters who will give Rudd and the Labor Party another term.

Unfortunately conservatives in Australia have the same problem as the US. The education system has dumbed down a generation of voters and the MSM while not as bad as the US ignores or whitewashes the Labor Party’s shortcomings.

We’re trying like hell to survive the most radical, corrupt, disastrous president and administration of our lifetimes – and what does John McCain do? He’s falling over himself to embrace Obama and cut deals with him. Unbelievable. McCain is a menace.

Pathetic behavior. The WAPO press has an incredible ability to make GOP cave. This is insane. Dana Milbank, “Maverick is back?” Heaven help us. The egos with so many of these people is just so over the top.

McCain must love attention – he’s selling us down the river. Heck, he was imprisoned for this and he now caves? If he thinks he can trust Dems he’s really in lalaland. O and his policies will kill this nation, period.

McCain-just another crackpot liberal who enjoys keeping the Republican Party in constant turmoil. Loser is just too polite a word to describe this jerk. He’s getting way too much attention for him to switch parties. He loves to be called a maverick. That term energizes his ego!

Bmore,novaculus,blufox,Axe,bazil9 and others – how about taking your niceties and personal dream statements to twitter where this nonsense belongs, instead of subjecting the rest of us to your useless blather.
This site is for earnest discussions about losers like McCain and his hero Obama, not your sweet notes to each other.
Have a good day!

Oh, my, now betraying your principles is ok if you gain a political compromise. I regret my vote more each day. The left never compromises their principles. They may settle for a slightly smaller tax hike because they know they can come back again for another bite from our wallets later. Making deals in DC is another word for vote buying and what’s in it for me. He’s working on his legacy.

Oh, my, now betraying your principles is ok if you gain a political compromise. I regret my vote more each day. The left never compromises their principles. They may settle for a slightly smaller tax hike because they know they can come back again for another bite from our wallets later. Making deals in DC is another word for vote buying and what’s in it for me. He’s working on his legacy.

Kissmygrits on August 4, 2013 at 10:03 AM

I wouldn’t beat myself up. All you can do is act on what you see, and if you’re growing, you see better today than you did yesterday. Can’t judge Kissmygrits yesterday against Kissmygrits today — would never measure up. :)

I agree with your analysis on progs being happy to move the ball at all. Once it’s written, the foundation’s laid, and it’s nothing to come back and make 4 cents 6 and a half, then eight, then nine and a half . . .

Barack Obama, to hear his advisers tell it, has finally found The One he has been looking for: John McCain.

“We have been looking literally for years for someone we can cut deals with, and finally someone has stepped up,” a White House official said.

Sadly, the carpetbagger who abandoned his long-suffering wife for an easy House District he could win in Arizona, and the beer baroness trophy-wife, hasn’t connected with his one-time constituency for years!
His alleged “good friend Bud Day” finally passed away. Johnny Mac should have learned a few things from HIM like: Duty, Honor, Country.
~(Ä)~

Bmore,novaculus,blufox,Axe,bazil9 and others – how about taking your niceties and personal dream statements to twitter where this nonsense belongs, instead of subjecting the rest of us to your useless blather.
This site is for earnest discussions about losers like McCain and his hero Obama, not your sweet notes to each other.
Have a good day!

gunter on August 4, 2013 at 8:13 AM

Bluegill…is that you?

Sorry, lil feller…QOTD is an open thread and people come here to have a little fun.
If you can’t deal with that…if chit-chat upsets you…too bad. Eff off.

We were here having fun long before you showed up…and we’ll be here having fun long after you’re gone.

Bmore,novaculus,blufox,Axe,bazil9 and others – how about taking your niceties and personal dream statements to twitter where this nonsense belongs, instead of subjecting the rest of us to your useless blather.
This site is for earnest discussions about losers like McCain and his hero Obama, not your sweet notes to each other.
Have a good day!

Barack Obama, to hear his advisers tell it, has finally found The One he has been looking for: John McCain.

“We have been looking literally for years for someone we can cut deals with, and finally someone has stepped up,” a White House official said.

Well, McConnell doesn’t plan on being left out!

Three Obama-McConnell Deals

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has negotiated three major deals with President Obama to (1) raise the debt limit, (2) increase taxes, and (3) fund Obamacare. All three are very bad for American taxpayers. Will he help President Obama enact a fourth deal to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants?